Monday, June 10, 2013

Taksim Square and the Fight for Turkish Identity

Guest contributor Caitlin Scuderi, a Ph.D candidate in the Department of Political Science at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA, is a former Boren Fellow who has conducted extensive research in Turkey.

Banners of demonstrators in Taksim Square

On Tuesday, May 28, builders and construction crews moved
into Gezi Park, a small public park on the north east side of the Taksim Square
in Istanbul.The redevelopment of the
park, as designed and implemented by the current ruling government, the Justice
and Development Party (AKP), includes plans for cultural centers, an opera
house, and a mosque. In addition to this, the plan also entails that an
Ottoman-era military barracks be rebuilt on the site. In order to implement
these plans, the current park must be razed, including its historical sycamore
trees, and the historic Ataturk Cultural Center must be demolished.[1]

The same morning construction crews moved into the park,
environmental activists from around the city converged on Gezi Park – some of
the last green space in a quickly developing city. On Thursday, May 30, police raided the
protestors at dawn and two days later, protests erupted in major cities across
Turkey in solidarity. Police have responded with teargas and water cannons.

Protests against environmental degradation, urbanization,
and pedestrianization are a hallmark of developing and growing cities
throughout the world. The question then is, what makes the protests that began
in Gezi Park and spread throughout Turkey different?

A wounded demonstrator

The answer is that these protests have little to do with the
symptoms of development and everything to do with growing discontent about the
ruling AKP in general and with Prime Minister Erdogan specifically.

The AKP has been in power since 2002 and in the 11 years
that have passed, the party under the leadership of Erdogan has become
increasingly more overt in its prescription of adherence to Islamic mores and
directives. In early 2011, the AKP government placed controversial restrictions
on alcohol and alcohol-related advertising.[2]
This move was promptly labeled as a nod to Islam by secularists in Turkey.

While the AKP has fervently denied any hidden agendas
relating to the implementation of Sharia Law throughout the country, secularists
have pointed to the details of the party’s plans as evidence of their ‘real’
agenda. For instance, just prior to the 2011 round of alcohol restrictions, the
government increased a special tax on alcohol by 30 percent – making Turkey one
of the world’s most expensive countries for alcohol. Importantly, this
increased the price of raki, an anise-flavored drink widely consumed throughout
Turkey, to about 35 USD per liter.[3]
Raki is associated with Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and it is a widely held belief
that he enjoyed the drink frequently. In this way, an attack on alcohol – and
specifically on raki – is considered an attack on Ataturk, the man attributed
with the founding of the cosmopolitan and secular Turkish state.

Barricades in Taksim Square

In the same vane, the government’s plans to raze Gezi Park
have hit a nerve with Turkish secularists. The first problem is with the
erection of the Ottoman-era military barracks. Turkey values its military and
has honored it with parks and museums throughout the country. These specific barracks,
however, represent something more. The barracks being reconstructed were the
sight of a failed mutiny attempt by Islamic-minded soldiers intent on
incorporating Sharia law into the fabric of society.[4]Again, secularists see the choice of
rebuilding this specific barracks as an affront to the country’s secular
foundation.

In order to even build the military barracks, the historic
Ataturk Cultural Center must be demolished. In the same way that levying a tax
on raki and rebuilding the barracks reaffirms some secularists’ ideas that the
AKP government has a hidden agenda, demolishing a center with Ataturk’s name
sends a message that the AKP government envisions an identity for Turkey
different from that of its founders.

Last, secularists and Turks concerned with the state of
democracy in general have voiced their discontent with the government’s choice
of Kalyon Group as the project’s main contractor.[5]
Kalyon Group’s close ties with the AKP government raise questions of
transparency and corruption within the government (this isn’t the only time the
AKP’s transparency has been question, however. The 2008 1.1 billion USD
acquisition of Turkuvas Media Group by Calik Group raised eyebrows: Calik’s
chairman and CEO is Erdogan’s son-in-law).[6]

Makeshift hospital for wounded demonstrators

The protests that have erupted in Turkey are not about Gezi
Park or the environment in general. Rather, they are about Turkey's identity.
Protestors are concerned about what Turkey has become and where it is heading;
they are concerned about the reality that the AKP has been in power for 11
years and will be in power for at least another two more; and they are concerned
about the state of democracy under a government that on occasion lacks
transparency and practices in-group bidding, if not corruption. How these
protests play out will leave a definitive mark on Turkey’s identity. If the
protestors elicit concessions from Erdogan and his AKP government, the country
could move forward toward more collective decision making and increased
compromise in the political arena. If, however, the protests continue without evoking political
change, Erdogan and the AKP’s days will be numbered.

About Me

Eric Davis is Executive Director, MA Program in Political Science - Concentration in United Nations and Global Policy Studies, Professor of Political Science and the former director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA. He is author of CHALLENGING COLONIALISM: BANK MISR AND EGYPTIAN INDUSTRIALIZATION, 1920-1941 (Princeton University Press, 1983; Institute for Arab Development, Beirut, 1986, and Dar al-Sharook, Cairo, 2009); STATECRAFT IN THE MIDDLE EAST: OIL, HISTORICAL MEMORY AND POPULAR CULTURE (University Presses of Florida, 1993); MEMORIES OF STATE: POLITICS, HISTORY AND COLLECTIVE IDENTITY IN MODERN IRAQ (University of California Press, 2005; Arab Institute for Research and Publishing, 2008; and the forthcoming, TAKING DEMOCRACY SERIOUSLY IN IRAQ (Cambridge University Press). Currently, he is writing a book on the Islamic State and the changing modalities of terrorism in the Middle East. He can be contacted at davis@polisci.rutgers.edu and @NewMidEast